Colors: The Inky Black Path To My Future
by Liv Wilder
Summary: Another story in the 'Colors' series. 'She walks to the bed, her childhood bed – the queen with the rustic ivory frame she persuaded her mom to buy aged twelve when she got too tall for her childish twin. Bright costume jewelry still hangs off the posts at the top, scarves and purses entwined around the bottom; things she couldn't take to Stanford, but couldn't bear to throw out.'


_A/N: Another story in the 'Colors' series. This one takes us back to the day of Johanna Beckett's funeral, when Kate Beckett was just nineteen years old. _

_This story is in memory of my own mom, who sadly died two years ago today. Always missed and never forgotten._

* * *

"_He is a reminder that even on the worst days there is a possibility for joy."_

_-Kate Beckett talking about her 'Stickman', Castle 5x03 'Secret's Safe With Me'._

_**The Inky Black Path To My Future**_

_She wishes her mother were here._

Her body feels old, old and tired. Her joints are stiff, her knees creak, as she bends to pull on her underwear – white cotton briefs with purple stripes and a mismatched bra with a polka dot design. Because she is nineteen and in college and doesn't yet possess any elegant, black lingerie to wear beneath the dress her stylish and more fashion-forward friend, Maddie, helped her pick out.

New clothes should give you pleasure, satisfaction, a burst of confidence when you slip them on. But today's dress is a jet-black shift that hugs her skinny, lanky frame like a second skin, making her appear older and yet younger at the same time. Like a child playing dress-up with her mother's wardrobe, a teenager pretending to be an adult - a recent graduate at a job interview at best. But that is where the make-believe scenarios end, since today she is dressing for her mother's funeral, and events don't come much more grown-up or crushingly real than that.

She would rather be anywhere else, wearing anything else but this – widow's weeds for a half-orphaned child. But her father needs her and she has no choice. His face disappeared these last few days from time to time - to her parent's darkened, silent bedroom, to the small downstairs bathroom with the faucet running to mask the tears he thinks she can't hear him shed, and into the bottom of a heavy crystal tumbler they were given as a wedding gift; amber liquor coating the sides with rapid brevity. She's losing him to these things – to grief – and she's never felt so alone.

_She wishes her mother were here._

* * *

A light tap on the door and it's nearly time. She steps into her shoes – plain back pumps with a kitten heel. She feels herself wobble, the spindly spikes digging into her wooden floor. She looks at herself in the mirror. Her face is pale, angular, her cheekbones too sharp for just five days of grief. It's sucking the life from her, but beginning to burn inside of her too – a bright flame licking at her guts, her heart, driving her on to something or somewhere. She's not yet sure what.

She sweeps her eyes over the length of her frame. She's tall, sees her mother in her self more today than ever before, feels as if she may be becoming her. Hopes this will not upset her father too much – this stark reminder of the love he has lost. Her skin, her eyes, the backs of her hands, they look more and more like her mother's by the second. It's comforting and disturbing at the same time. She doesn't want to lose her, to completely let go, but she has years ahead of her, needs to forge her own path, live her own life…not become a vessel for a life cut short.

She kicks the pumps off, watches them skid under her bed, and then she steps into a pair of flats, her height still dominant, her center more stable, more comfortable to be this person today.

"Katie, it's time," Maddie calls softly, through the bedroom door.

"Be right there," she promises, biting her lip to fight back tears.

The footsteps retreat and she is alone again with the ticking of a clock inside her head that matches the spikey, thudding rhythm of her heart.

_And she wishes her mother were here._

Because she is afraid. She is afraid of the emotions just waiting, threatening to flood out of her, to engulf her. Afraid that if she starts to break down, to let go, then she will never be able to stop, never be able to close the door on the world of grief that's stalking her, threatening to consume all of her.

A book lies open on her nightstand, the hardcover spine cracked down the back, her bookmark splayed across the only words giving her comfort right now, taking her out of her own head and into someone else's crime-filled world; the mind of the author's a more comfortable place to inhabit than her own these long dark nights. The book is her mother's and she touches it, skims the warm, creamy pages imagining she can see her mother's fingerprints all over it; needing some proof of her existence, imagining her fingerprints on everything, just wishing she could see them. Needing proof.

She steps up to the bed, her childhood bed – the queen with the rustic ivory frame she persuaded her mom to buy aged twelve when she got too tall for her childish twin. Bright costume jewelry still hangs off the posts at the top, scarves and purses entwined around the bottom; things she couldn't take to Stanford but couldn't bear to throw out.

Her black coat is lying there, waiting for her to don like a shroud: the final outward symbol of her grief. She skims her fingers over the wool, fingers the black buttons, and then lifts it up. It's time. She's afraid of this part – the saying goodbye - because it feels too final, as if yet another door is closing and her mother is moving even further away, further from her reach. She's afraid of forgetting, can no longer hear her mother's clear voice, her mind jumbled by a furious series of questions for which she as yet has no answers.

_Why?_ This is the simplest, the most all-encompassing, the over-arching syllable that runs around inside her head when awake or asleep. Just…_why?_

Something of her rational self knows that answering this question will not bring her mother back. But the irrational, anger driven, grief-stricken part just needs to know. So she is forming a plan, making decisions that will lead her down the inky black path to her future.

Her childhood is over.

She dons the coat and unknowingly becomes the woman who will fight for the life she lost, saving many others along the way – her own father included - though this will only happen in time. And that path will eventually draw her from _why_ onto _who _and a darkness that will engulf her until she acquires the strength to fight it.

* * *

Her dad's broken voice greets her through the door.

"Katie Bug, the cars are here."

Her heart stops. She wants to cry out, '_No, no, no!_ _Send them away._'

But it's too late now. Her mouth is dry, her heart is hammering, she feels nauseous and out of control, and it's too late now.

"Be right there," she croaks, biting her lip and swiping at the tears that fall.

_And she so wishes that her mother were here._

She spies a silver dollar on the bureau, one her uncle gave her when she was ten years old – the American Eagle glinting at her, the year 1990 embossed below the walking figure of Liberty. She palms it, the cool metal burning her even colder fingers, and then she slips it into her pocket. A talisman maybe, or something she may choose to drop into the grave at the very last moment. A token for her mother to take to the other side - her fare to pay the toll the ferryman will demand to take her across the river of Styx.

It sits in her pocket, solid and heavy, just like her heart.

One final check in the mirror, her unruly hair falling in a long chestnut curtain down her back, her stiff fingers work the buttons of her coat closed, every act today counting down towards the inevitable goodbye she has to make.

It's like torture, being forced by the laws of nature and societal mores to carry out this ritual farewell. She imagines someone grabbing hold of her hands and dragging her down the hallway, her feet slipping quietly across the wooden boards against her will.

She clasps her hands and drops her head. The room is silent, the murmur of voices downstairs a reminder of the task that lies in wait for her beyond the bedroom door.

"Mom, I miss you. Please forgive me," she says out loud, as she walks to the door with her heart sitting like a stone in the center of her chest, her throat painfully tight, eyes burning.

This goodbye feels like a betrayal, not a honoring.

She wraps her fingers around the silver coin and opens the bedroom door. It's time, and she'll never be ready for this, no matter how long she waits.

She slips out into the gloom of the darkened hall, the curtains closed, the entire house in mourning, as she takes another tentative step on the inky black path to her future.

_And she will never stop wishing that her mother were here._

* * *

**Black** _noun_: the color of the hidden, the secretive and the unknown, creating an air of mystery. It keeps things bottled up inside, hidden from the world. In color psychology the meaning of the color black is protection from external emotional stress. It creates a barrier between itself and the outside world, providing comfort while protecting its emotions and feelings, and hiding its vulnerabilities, insecurities and lack of self-confidence.

Black is the absorption of all color and the absence of light. Black implies self-control and discipline, independence and a strong will, giving an impression of authority and power.

Black is the end, but the end always implies a new beginning. When the light appears, black becomes white, the color of new beginnings.

* * *

_Thoughts?_


End file.
